Hallucinations
by Lupa Eira
Summary: In which Sherlock Holmes was in an accident, and wakes up hallucinating one Rose Tyler. At least, he thinks she's a hallucination. Turns out he's just the only one who can see her. Oneshot. Can be read as Roselock or not depending upon your preference, though there is a bit of a romantic undertone. AU Season 3 and Journey's End. Note: I have edited this a bit since I first posted.


**In which Sherlock Holmes was in an accident, and wakes up hallucinating one Rose Tyler. At least, he thinks she's a hallucination. Turns out he's just the only one who can see her. Oneshot. Can be read as Roselock or not depending upon your preference, though there is a bit of a romantic undertone. AU Season 3 and Journey's End.**

**Wow, I seem to be on a roll with these Roselock-ish oneshots these days. I seem to have an endless amount of ideas regarding the two of them interacting. For those who are not reading for Roselock: be warned, there is a definite romantic undertone here not present in my last oneshot. Also, the italics are Sherlock's thoughts from the future, and the normal text is technically flashback. There will be a significant amount of time-skipping in this fic. Where exactly this happens isn't certain, though it is post-Reichenbach. Enjoy!**

* * *

_I still don't know what happened, not really. Still don't, except now, I don't give a damn._

_One day, I woke up, and she was there._

_And she never left._

* * *

Sherlock woke hazily, recognizing immediately that he must have several drugs running through his system. Judging by that, the lighting, the feel of the bed, and the fact that his shoulder hurt like hell, he must be in a hospital. And…

"Who are you?" he demanded groggily. "What are you doing here?" His vision was going in and out of focus, so there was no chance of making accurate deductions, but he could still see the outline of a blond young woman sitting in the chair beside his bed. Someone he didn't know.

"My name is Rose Tyler. You can help me, can't you, Sherlock Holmes?"

Keeping his eyes closed because the bright light hurt them a bit, Sherlock muttered, "I don't understand. How did you get in here?"

"I walked in. No one stopped me. Then again, you're the first person who's seen me in days. So, the famous Sherlock Holmes. I wasn't expecting you to be this handsome. I have a case for you." Sherlock narrowed his eyes. She seemed to be honest in her speech, which was simultaneously interesting and confusing. And, now that his vision was clearing, it was obvious she had no drugs in her system that would be a tell for a mental disease, or indeed, any other indications.

"Sherlock!" John came through the door urgently, looking concerned and relieved all at once, interrupting whatever Rose was going to say next. The woman in question looked at the doctor in almost clinical interest. His friend checked his pulse, then his temperature. "What do you remember?" the army doctor asked.

"I was chasing the murderer on the motorcycle, and I crashed, thus successfully causing the killer to himself accidentally run into a bush and flip over at such an angle that he was incapacitated long enough for you to apprehend him," Sherlock said with a hint of annoyance. "My memory is perfect, John."

"Just checking," John said with a tight smile. Sherlock turned to look at the woman in the chair next to him with puzzlement. Why hadn't John commented on her?

"Do you two know each other?" he asked with a furrowed brow.

"Never seen him in person in my life," the blonde quickly asserted. John, however, looked around in puzzlement.

"Who?" he asked, looking around the blank hospital room. The woman and Sherlock glanced at each other briefly before looking back at John.

"Me, I'm right here," Rose said with a sad smile and a bit of laughter. "But you can't see me, can you?"

"She's right there; you're looking right at her," Sherlock echoed, a hint of annoyance creeping into his voice. His friend now looked rather worried.

"Sherlock, there's no one there." Immediately the army doctor began checking Sherlock's head for injuries. Though he had done so before, it was entirely plausible that there was something deeper going on.

"John, you're not listening, she's right there," Sherlock said, his voice taking on characteristics of distress and going so far as to slap John's hand away. "She's not a natural blonde, she's an only child from a working class home and grew up with a single mother, does a lot of running and a lot of standing, was in a permanent relationship that unexpectedly broke off, and she's sitting right in front of you!" He didn't even realize he had been shouting until the air rang with the silence. John looked extremely concerned now.

"Your reputation precedes you, Mr. Holmes." Rather than looking perturbed, the woman looked mildly impressed and even a little hopeful.

"Sherlock, there's no one there," John said gently, looking into his eyes with naked honesty.

"I'm right here; he just can't hear me," Rose said.

When John didn't respond at all, Sherlock realized his blogger was right. He was hallucinating. He brought his hand to his eyes, shaking. John informed him he'd get permission for a brain scan and then left, placing his hand briefly over Sherlock's in a gesture of reassurance.

"I'm real," Rose said calmly.

"No, you're not," Sherlock said dismissively, not looking at her. "You're just in my head."

"No, I'm real," she insisted. She stood up, beginning to pace. "I grew up in South London. I worked in a shop. I traveled. I helped people. I worked for Torchwood, and I had an accident, and now no one can see me but you because you have a gift, Mr. Holmes. And you can help me, can't you?" She sat back down, staring at him unblinkingly. "The Invisible Girl-it would make a nice title on your doctor's blog, don't you think?"

* * *

_Sometimes I still don't think I know who she is. I could never figure her out, not really, and eventually I stopped trying. Or rather, I stopped trying so hard. Like John. Another person burning themselves into my heart. I didn't even know there was room for one, let alone two. Every little thing I figured out about her, every little smile and what it meant, was a victory. She remained a puzzle at the back of my mind forever._

* * *

She stayed in the flat. Though it greatly irritated Sherlock, she said she had nowhere else to go, and camped out on the couch. When Sherlock protested and she realized he hardly ever slept in his bed, she took the liberty of sleeping in his bed. He never protested.

She said she couldn't take him to Torchwood, but she showed him some computer files that proved her story. And John could see the computer files, so Sherlock was inevitably forced to conclude that Rose Tyler was not, in fact, a hallucination. That and the brain scan had yielded no results that would indicate a cause for hallucination, so Sherlock had lied to John and said that she had disappeared.

Rose explained, along with supplementary information from the Torchwood files, that she had been working on a project, trying to figure out a technology that had been confiscated from hostile aliens. It had intrigued her because it had reminded her of a project she'd had years ago, something called a Dimension Cannon. And long story short, something had gone wrong, there'd been an explosion, and when she came to, no one could see her.

Rose Tyler, a woman of unconventional beauty and of even more unconventional mind, had decided to seek out the great Sherlock Holmes of 221B Baker Street. According to Torchwood files, he was marked as a human with high psychic ability, or perception. At least, that's what she told him.

"If anyone can figure out how to make me visible, it's you," she declared.

Sherlock thought. He experimented. Rose was patient. None of it came to fruition, but Sherlock was determined to figure out this human puzzle, the mystery of Rose Tyler. When he was locked away in his mind palace or absorbed in an experiment, she read. She loved reading, but she religiously avoided science fiction, and tended away from overt romance. Going to Torchwood was unfortunately only an option as a last effort, as the security was higher than even Sherlock could break into in a hurry.

Meanwhile, she went on cases with them.

At first, she stayed quietly in the background, just watching him work. The detective had the oddest feeling that she was used to this, somehow. That she had done this before. Occasionally, she even asked a prompting question, one that set Sherlock on the right track. Her pacing of the questions was perfect, and more often than not the questions were exactly the right ones. It was quite refreshing, and worked perfectly with John's contributions. It was a bit difficult to conceal from John the fact that he was talking to someone that the other couldn't see, but he figured out that as long as he repeated whatever Miss Tyler had said and then followed up on his own thoughts afterward, it worked out fine.

* * *

_I liked her. She was alright, as far people went. Like Molly, or Lestrade. Not quite on John's level, but no one was as important as John, so it didn't count against her. Unlike John, she was utterly and completely constant. She never really left, because no one else could see her. I learned things about her even more quickly than I learned things about John. Her emotions were particularly visible as she was reading-whenever she thought I was in my mind palace, she picked up a book and began to read. I even pretended a few times just to catalog the emotions she was showing. It was a form of entertainment for me._

_She smiled at odd moments and talked about the universe. She showed me pictures of stars and told me she'd seen them in person. I never really believed her, but the few files she showed me from Torchwood confirmed at least the existence of aliens. It was only logical, really, but it didn't concern me. Only London and the mysteries on Earth were truly fascinating for me. Still, she was the only person who ever got me even remotely interested in space._

_One day she looked up at the sky and told me that she'd seen the sun burn out._

_That was the day John first saw her._

* * *

It was a normal case, as far as cases went. Not as thrilling as the Baskerville case by far, but definitely enough of a mind-bender to keep Sherlock occupied, and his excitement was contagious. Something about a man trying to steal his wife's family's fortune in order to support his gambling addiction and in turn support his mafia connections with creative murder thrown somewhere in the mix, and while it involved a few interesting puzzles, it was a fairly easy case as far as cases went. The perpetrator was caught and the crime exposed. That should have been the end of it, but in the incompetent hands of some idiot or other, the killer had escaped.

Sherlock and John, of course, immediately chased after him before the police were even aware of his escape. Rose, undeterrable as always, tagged along, running flat out in that peculiar way that told Sherlock she was used to this, used to running like he and John ran, and it was oddly comforting.

They cornered the man in a dead-end alleyway. John and Sherlock together disarmed him easily enough. They wrested his gun from him and knocked him out cold.

"Boring," Rose and Sherlock said at the same time. Rose grinned at the dark-haired detective. He offered her a small, precious lifting of the lips in return.

"I was expecting at least half a mile more from him," she complained, breaking the mood. She turned toward the front of the alleyway. Her eyes widened, but Sherlock didn't see.

He only heard when the scream NO! was torn from her throat, and turned in time to witness a bullet entering her body.

* * *

_Her arms were spread out wide, and she fell backwards._

_She took that bullet for me._

_Why?_

* * *

John blinked, not believing what he was seeing. A woman he had never seen before was on the ground, bleeding from her chest, and Sherlock had knelt beside her, taking her hand.

"Rose," he was saying, over and over. "Rose, can you hear me? Stay awake, Rose." The woman struggled to breathe through the hole in her lungs, and was blinking rapidly. She exhaled, and closed her eyes. Sherlock glanced up to see that the shooter was still at the entrance of the alleyway, apparently as stunned as John at the sudden appearance of someone who hadn't been there in the few seconds beforehand. John watched, stunned, as Sherlock's face lost all expression, and then contorted into the most animal-like expression John had ever seen on his flatmate's face.

With only a hint of a growl, the expression dissolved into the most terrifyingly blank face John had ever seen. He watched, frozen, as Sherlock drew himself up to his full, menacing stature. He looked toward the shooter, who still hadn't moved from the front of the alleyway. With the aura of power surrounding him, the shooter was also paralyzed. He shook. Sherlock took a single step forward.

And he ran toward the shooter, tackling him to the ground and punching him repeatedly in the face. No, not just in the face. John watched, almost horrified but mostly fascinated, as Sherlock viciously attacked, and attacked, and attacked.

"Sherlock…" a whisper came from the ground. John looked down, and then ran to the woman, who was speaking. He tore a strip of cloth off his shirt and pressed it against her wound, checking her pulse. "Oh, God, you can see me," she gasped. John chose to not question the strange circumstances at the moment in favor of trying to save her life, dialing 999 with his cell in one hand."J-John," she stammered while John spoke urgent directions into the phone. When he hung up, she grabbed his hand weakly. He looked into her eyes, startled. "Sherlock…" she whispered. A tear escaped one of her eyes as she clenched her eyes, and John's hand, against the pain. "Tell him to stop," she pleaded. "Please, Sherlock, stop!" she gasped, letting out a cry at the pain the movement caused.

Sherlock turned around with tears in his eyes at the sound of her voice. John was not certain he'd ever looked so broken, except perhaps when he had jumped off the roof of St. Barts. He abandoned the shooter where he was, knowing he was unconscious, and rushed to Rose's side. By the time he got there, however, she had fainted.

* * *

_I remember being in a haze._

_Nothing had felt real except her pain._

_I must have gone into shock, because I haven't the faintest idea what happened after that. When I came to, in the hospital, the first thing I demanded was that I see her. So John took me there. And we just waited._

_I've always hated waiting. It never fails to make me feel like a situation is not in my control. I hate waiting for lab reports on cases, I hate waiting for John to come back from the surgery, I hate waiting for clients to articulate their cases properly. And I hated waiting for Rose Tyler to wake up._

_She was so pale, so still. Like she was actually a flower, and her petals were falling off from lack of sustenance._

* * *

Rose awoke hazily within the hospital, and the first thing she saw was Sherlock.

"What happened?" she murmured, her voice scratchy from disuse. A hand pressed a cup of water into hers; Rose looked up and saw John Watson. To her utter surprise, he clearly could see her. And though his tight-lipped expression and slightly narrowed eyes gave away how much he was dying to ask questions , due to his discipline and own caring nature, he declined to. Rose was grateful, and turned her attention back to her dark-haired detective.

"You were shot," he said. She knew stating the obvious was a bit of a defense mechanism for him, so she ignored it. "Somehow that caused you to cease being in a state of flux. Now you're visible. To everyone."

"I'm sorry, what?" John asked, looking back and forth between the two.

"I've known Rose for six months," Sherlock said simply. "Except she was invisible, because she was in a state of flux."

"Sherlock is already gifted with the ability to see things that most people can't," Rose chimed in. "So, of course, he was able to see me. That's how Sherlock knew he wasn't going crazy. I'd had an accident with something I was working on at Torchwood and ended up in what's called a state of flux. Pretty much everyone thought I was dead."

"She turned up at Baker Street one day while you were working and showed me some files from Torchwood that confirmed the whole thing; it's all quite plausible really," Sherlock continued. "Now, it seemed the emotions she was feeling at the time combined with the bullet hitting her body created enough concentration of sensation that she was able to become visible to everyone." John's jaw nearly dropped at how in sync the two of them were.

"So...you've been here, alive, all this time?"

"And you've never seen me," Rose clarified cheerily. "Since this is technically your first time meeting me-" she stuck out her hand, which John took-"hello, John Watson. I'm Rose Tyler."

"Wait…" John said slowly, turning to Sherlock. "Then, those hallucinations you had, at the hospital-"

"Not hallucinations," Sherlock confirmed casually, not looking at his flatmate. "Your move," he added to Rose. John glanced at the side table and noticed, somewhat to his chagrin, that the two of them had begun a robust game of checkers. Rose had already made her way across the board with two kings, while Sherlock had one.

"So what now?" John finally said.

"I go back to Torchwood, back to work," Rose said. "I tell everyone I'm not dead, and I finally stop bugging the great Sherlock Holmes, yeah? Because now I can actually go back to my own flat." John noticed that Sherlock didn't say anything after she made that last statement, and cleared his throat.

"I'll get a nurse to bring you your medication, all right?" he said, glancing between the two of them somewhat pointedly.

* * *

_After John left, we sat quietly. I was grateful for his discretion; it was a mark of how well he knew me. I knew Rose was ecstatic to be visible again, and some part of me was glad that she would be able to share her utter brilliance with the world._

_So why did I feel an odd ache in my chest?_

* * *

"Miffed that you couldn't solve my problem yourself?" Rose joked.

"Hardly," Sherlock sniffed haughtily. Rose laughed, knowing he was lying. They played checkers in silence for a few minutes, each confined to their own thoughts.

"You know, I've seen a lot of things," Rose murmured, breaking Sherlock out of his thoughts. "I've seen the stars go out. I've seen an ocean that was completely frozen with waves towering hundreds of feet above my head. I met a forest that was a person. But the most important thing that ever happened to me was a man. He was called the Doctor."

* * *

_She had never mentioned the Doctor before. I knew from her tone that he was the one with whom she had had a relationship. The tale that followed was the most fantastic I had ever heard. The most intimate, meaningful, important story. I locked it away permanently in my mind palace, in the room marked "Rose"._

_She told me about a person who was more angel than man. A man who had loved her so much that he burned up an entire sun just to say goodbye to her. But not enough to find a way back to her. Not enough to never move on._

_Rose told me she loved him, and she would always love him, but that she knew that she wasn't his Rose anymore. That he had probably found someone else, and that was all right, because he needed companions. She didn't want him to be lonely without her. She knew she could never truly be replaced. She would be seared into his hearts along with all the other people he had ever held dear. He would always carry her with him. His Rose._

_I couldn't quite understand why that hurt, somehow. But it also made me realize just how wonderful and mysterious this woman really was. This was a woman who saved the universe. Saved a man who could more be likened to god than human. She'd helped him. And she helped me._

_Such beauty had never before been bestowed upon my eyes._

* * *

"I was just a blip in time for him. Two years out of over nine hundred. Who knows how old he is now? It's hard to say." She contemplated for a while what her next words would be. "I'll be glad if he moved forward," she said finally. "I think a hundred years or so would be enough time to justify him moving on. It's not as though I was the first. I'm sure I won't be the last."

* * *

_She told me how she had worked on a device called a Dimension Cannon to get back to him. She told me it hadn't worked. She told me that she realized that she had changed so much. She told me she thought long and hard, and that she didn't want him to see her grow old. He had already lost her once, and she didn't want him to go through the pain of losing her slowly. Especially because he wouldn't grow old with her._

_The Doctor's Rose. My Rose._

_I had grown to think of her as mine within the months she had come into my life. I was, after all, the only one who could see her. There was a significant amount of possessive feeling involved with a person who could only talk to you, and no one else._

* * *

A tear slipped down Rose's cheek. Just one, but it was more meaningful than sobbing.

"Why are you telling me all of this?" Sherlock asked quietly. Rose met his eyes for one of the first times since the exchange had begun. They were strange, her eyes. Like a doe's, but also so timeless. Like the goddess she told him she once had been. These were eyes that had seen everything that could ever have been seen and survived it. Ancient. Rose.

"Because you're important to me, Sherlock," she said. "And I've learned that if someone's important to you, you tell them before it's too late." Sherlock absorbed this, but couldn't think of anything to say. "You reminded me a lot of him in the beginning, you know," she continued, tucking her hair behind her ear.

"And now?" the detective couldn't stop himself from adding.

"Now I only see you," Rose said simply. She reached to the bedside table and moved a checker. "I win," she said cheerily. Sherlock looked somewhat confused, glancing back and forth between the board and Rose's face. And Rose laughed. She laughed until it hurt too much with the wound to keep laughing.

* * *

_Now came the odd time._

_Rose was no longer invisible, and it became clear to me just how many friends and colleagues she had, since they all came to visit her in the hospital. I was jealous, if I'm being honest. Jealous of all the other lives she had touched besides mine. She was no longer just my Rose, just my constant companion. She was the Defender of the Earth. A Brigadier at Torchwood. She had her job, and her family, and her friends. I had John and Mycroft and Molly and Lestrade._

_Cases seemed a bit too serious sometimes without her making quips._

_John was with me, of course. That made it bearable. I quickly settled back into our old routine. For him, the routine had always been the same, since he had never actually been aware of Rose's presence on a case. Still, it was John Watson, and he's gifted with reading people. So he noticed the changes, if no one else did. Sometimes I'd start to ask her something, and she wouldn't be there. Of course, with my mind palace, she still helped on cases in a way._

_It wasn't quite the same._

_In my mind palace, every person within it serves a function. John Watson keeps me steady. Keeps me alive, keeps me sane. Mycroft keeps me calm and reasonable. Molly Hooper keeps me clear-headed emotionally. But Rose...she's just there. She helps with everything. Like John does, only different. Because she's Rose. Sometimes she's just reading in the background. Sometimes she'll ask questions. A lot of the time she doesn't. Sometimes she says she's on a case for Torchwood and asks me to leave her alone. I was puzzled about that and told John. He laughed and commented that she must have really gotten to me._

* * *

Rose walked calmly and confidently through the entrance of 221B Baker Street.

Sherlock, her dark-haired detective, was sitting in his normal chair. She knew he would have watched her enter the building from out the window. It had been three weeks since she last saw him.

"Hello," she said quietly, taking a seat. It was strange being in the flat again. Torchwood had kept her busy. She missed her bed here sometimes-no, that wasn't right, because it wasn't hers, it was Sherlock's.

Sherlock nodded in greeting.

"I'm not here on a case," she clarified. "And I'm sorry for just disappearing on you like that. Torchwood wanted me back. Months of paperwork to catch up on, you know." Sherlock nodded again; the blankness of his expression somewhat unsettling.

"How's your bullet wound?" he asked abruptly.

"Healing up." Rose shifted in her seat, well aware that he was analyzing every move she made. "So, Sherlock Holmes," she said, staring at him. "What do we do now, you and I?"

"You're back at your work, I'm back with mine," he said. The words were cold.

"Yes, well, it's taking a bit of getting used to. People being able to see me again, that is. I keep forgetting that I can actually talk to people."

"I imagine that would happen."

"Yes, you would," Rose laughed a little. It was a sad laugh. There was silence between them, but it stayed just on the edge of awkwardness. "So, why have you been avoiding me?" she asked with raised eyebrows.

"Me, avoiding you?"

"Well, I gave you my mobile number. And invited you to visit my flat. And asked you to contact me if you'd like me on a case. Funny, something must have gotten lost, because I haven't heard a single word from you."

"Your case is over; why would I contact you?"

"Oh, shut up, Sherlock," she chided. Without another word, she pulled out a book and began to read. Sherlock stared at her, surprised and a little incomprehensive. Somewhat put off, he huffed and went to his mind palace.

That's how John found them. Lost in their own little words, but in an atmosphere of togetherness.

Rose Tyler and Sherlock Holmes. Defenders of the Earth.

* * *

**Wow, I've been working on this for weeks! It's gone through several major plot changes and I'm pretty pleased with how it's turned out. It took me all day today to finish it because I was tired of only writing a couple of sentences on it every day. I apologize for the weak ending, but honestly it ended up basically where I wanted it to.**

**Also, let me make something clear: I think John is the most important person in Sherlock's life, and he will always remain that way. I tried not to replace him with Rose or downplay John's relationship with Sherlock (not sure if I succeeded or not though). Sherlock strikes me as demisexual, meaning he isn't necessarily attracted to gender but rather is attracted to people he forms very deep bonds with. John Watson has this potential. Maybe Rose does too.**

**Tell me what you think!**


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